Israel, Finland and Sweden led the way with a rank of four and a half stars out of five whilst Mexico languished behind in last place with a total of two stars out of five.

The main focal points that the rankings were based on consisted of the country having sufficient firewalls and antivirus protection and factors such as the level of education on cyber-security.

The Defence Agenda think tank team based there rankings on the perceived quality of cyber-readiness which is seen as a massive positive of conducting the research. Raj Samani, McAfee’s chief technology officer stated “The subjectiveness of the report is its biggest strength. What it does is give the perception of cyber-readiness by those individuals who kind of understand and work in cyber security on a day-in, day-out basis.”

So far Israel has set the bench mark for cyber-defence as it is reported that the country receive over 1,000 cyber-attacks every minute but do not suffer a huge amount of disruption or damage. Isaac Ben-Israel, senior security advisor to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated “The hacktivist group Anonymous carries out lots of attacks but they don’t cause much damage. The real threat is from states and major crime organisations.” Ben-Israel also revealed that the country has set up a cyber-taskforce which assesses the threats to key infrastructure such as power and water plants.

Meanwhile, the prominent gang and drug problems in Mexico have been blamed for their poor results. It is widely regarded that such problems have forced the government to focus their efforts on improving the situation and therefore they haven’t had the time or funds to look at implementing policies to improve their cyber defence infrastructure.

The report commended the efforts made by the UK government to improve the country’s cyber defence such as an investment program which is worth £650 million. Not everyone is happy with this investment and what the money is being for. Peter Sommer who is an information security expert argued “A great deal depends on co-operation from the private sector, which controls about 80% of the critical national infrastructure. Over half of the new funding will go to the ‘secret vote’, the intelligence agencies, where value for money will be difficult to investigate. I would have preferred more emphasis on public education – helping potential victims help themselves.”

The report concluded that in order to improve cyber-defence, there needs to be better communication between countries and a willingness to share data. The report also stated that cross boarder law enforcements needs to be improved and given more power.

Samani argued “Cybercriminals route their connection through multiple different countries. If criminals are particularly clever, they go through countries where they know there isn’t any co-operation. The bad guys share information – we need to do the same as well.”

These suggestions have been constantly acknowledged as the most efficient and effective way to improve cyber defence but the feasibility of it is very unrealistic. Dr Joss Wright who is from the Oxford Internet Institute argues “They’re recommendations that people have been saying for maybe 10 years. I would love to see good information sharing but when you’re talking about national security, there’s a culture of not sharing. They’re not suddenly going to change 70, 100, 1000 years of military thinking.”

UK Rank Favourably in a Cyber-Defence Survey is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

For an organisation with an expansive IT environment or one planning rapid expansion an agentless architecture is extremely beneficial.

Such a solution means that only one backup agent is required across an entire network.  Backups can therefore be managed from a single console making administration infinitely easier.

The software is generally installed on a dedicated backup box and if granted with universal administrative privileges, can ‘agentlessly’ browse across any network.

The pricing model which goes hand in hand with having agentless architecture is another attractive aspect. This is because of its simplicity.

Often the cost of backup will seem extremely reasonable on the surface. However then the end customer will be hit with agent, plugin and licensing costs. If their environment is large, these can be extensive.

Asigra’s architecture allows Backup Technology to offer a service whereby the pricing structure is entirely based upon the amount of data being backed up. There are no hidden costs whatsoever relating to licensing, plugins or agents.

In addition support is provided across Windows, Linux, UNIX, Novell & IBM, again from a single point of administration.

When choosing a backup product do not be mis-led by extremely cheap data quotas, only to find that there are huge setup and licensing costs. Choose a service which is geared for the enterprise market and which envisages expansion with ease.

Advantages of Going Agentless with Asigra is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

When you think about data backup and recovery, you probably think of natural disasters – floods, hurricanes, fires, and the like.  But cybersecurity expert Richard Clarke says that the biggest threat to our sensitive information may not come from the sea or the sky.  It may come from China.  Or Iran, North Korea, Russia, or any other nation with the technical capability to launch a cyberattack on the United States.

At a recent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) colloquium, Clarke – a former counter-terrorism czar for presidents George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton – said that he doesn’t believe that the United States is prepared to defend itself from a full-scale cyberattack.

Clarke told conference attendees that the United States’ networks were “as porous as a colander.” He said that the country’s cybersecurity was so weak that he’d encourage America’s leaders to think twice before going to war with other nations.

“I can’t assure you that as you go to war with a cybersecurity-conscious, cybersecurity-capable enemy that any of our stuff is going to work,” Clarke said, adding that a retaliation launched by another country could cripple the country’s power grids, banking systems, military communications, and transportation systems.

Clarke told attendees that the U.S. needs step up its cybersecurity efforts.  He urged the government to take action to protect the country from debilitating cyberattacks and to prevent other countries from stealing sensitive information.  He also encouraged government organizations to be more vigilant and proactive when it came to malware and viruses.

So what does this mean for your business?

Well, to start with, it’s important to remember that disasters aren’t always natural.  Your business may not be located on a flood plain; and you may not live in a part of the world that’s prone to hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes.  But manmade disasters – terrorist attacks, for example, or cyberattacks – can happen anywhere.

Would your organization’s sensitive data be protected in the event of a manmade disaster?  What is your company doing to protect your systems from viruses and malware?  How quickly would you bounce back if a cyberattack wiped out, say, your financial information or client records?

Are you prepared for a cyberattack?  What is your backup plan?  Is your company a colander or a fortress? Leave a comment and tell us what you’re doing to protect yourself against disasters – natural and manmade.

“Porous as a Colander” is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

He came back talking about de-duplication and the fact that data was being stored on their servers rather than on the customer’s site. He then concluded by shrugging his shoulders and saying “The future is bright so give us all your data.”

For a start de-duplication is not a differentiating factor which other software is missing. Secondly the whole point of off-site backup is to get data offsite, so the second part of his answer did not make any sense. So what is the secret to companies offering unlimited storage?

The model which such companies use is that the few users which utilise a large amount of storage will be balanced out by those that use little storage.

The other part of the model which is talked about in the interview is economies of scale. The more customers which join the more storage costs fall.

So the short fall is that someone is going to place all your business data (an unlimited amount) on the cheapest hardware which they can get through bulk purchasing. Then hope that the law of averages work out so that other companies will not eat too far into their unlimited quota.

In this scenario profits rely on making hardly anything per customer but having millions of customers. However when you see this model failing for the likes of Mozy in the consumer market, it does not bode well for the business market. Mozy was one of the original pioneers in the space and unlimited storage is a great concept. However as people create an ever increasingly large digital footprint, it is simply unrealistic.

Tread carefully when considering an unlimited service, especially when it comes to protecting your business data.

Why Unlimited Backup Quotas are Unrealistic. is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

It is worth reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of these before reaching a decision on which way to go.

The main considerations are what you are wishing to achieve, and how far your budget will stretch. Understanding the difference between Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity is therefore essential. It is worth firstly defining these.

‘Disaster Recovery’ refers to the process of recovering data in the event of a disaster. So the disaster occurs and then the work is done to recover the data or entire infrastructure. The time frame in which this is achieved gradually closes until you reach ‘Business Continuity.’

Business Continuity is a scenario whereby you can actually continue your business through a disaster, without any form of disruption.

Let’s first take a replication scenario with no ‘Point in Time Backup’ procedure in place. There is a storm and lightening strikes your primary offices, frying your main servers.  However all is well because you have been running real-time replication to a secondary location. You can therefore continue operations as normal.

However let’s look at a couple of perhaps more likely scenarios. A file corruption occurs on the primary site. This is replicated to the secondary site making a non-corrupt version impossible to regain. Or a deletion occurs on the primary server. This is mirrored onto the secondary server, again making file recovery impossible.

With a proper backup procedure in place you can refer back to a point in time i.e. when the last scheduled backup was run. If the backup product stores multiple generations you can refer back to a version of the file/database, before the corruption/deletion occurred.

So there are certainly advantages of having real time replication in place.  However the decision to implement replication as a sole DR/BC solution is ill-researched. This is because in many scenarios a secondary real-time mirror of your data is useless.

The other point about replication is that you need much resource in the form of bandwidth to replicate on a continual basis. Backup generally takes place out of office hours when bandwidth demand is nil. Furthermore for replication you can expect to double all your hardware costs.

A further expense is achieving the geographical separation necessary to make it worthwhile. Some businesses choose to solely replicate to secondary servers onsite. However in disaster recovery terms there is little point in such a solution.

The dream scenario is of course to have both backup and replication rolled into one. This way you can recover to a point in time and also maintain a high availability BC solution.

However to have both is expensive and in the current climate businesses often have to choose. Without question it is paramount to prioritise having a ‘Point in Time Backup’ solution in place.

Backup Technology are able to provide a solution which provides ‘Point in Time Backup’ as well as seamless Business Continuity. This is achieved through maintaining an up to date virtual replica of your environment rather than through replication. In the event of a disaster the task is therefore simple. We recover the small amount of changes to your warm standby server. The solution ensures that both Recovery Time Objectives and Recovery Point Objectives are achieved without the huge costs of implementing real-time replication.

Furthermore BTL work tirelessly alongside Asigra to continually develop our DR/ BC offerings in order to keep ahead of the ever increasingly demanding needs of the world today.

Backup Vs Replication is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

“As mobile devices and applications have become more user-friendly, affordable and powerful, the appeal to businesses of all types, including healthcare providers, has grown exponentially,” said Tim Herbert, vice president of CompTIA Research.

According to CompTIA’s Third Annual Healthcare IT Insights and Opportunities study, physicians have cited several reasons for switching to mobile healthcare tools, including increased productivity, improved patient care, and a potential system for accessing, storing and protecting Electronic Health Records (EHR).

CompTIA Research indicates that overall adoption of EHR systems is increasing:  38 percent of healthcare facilities are already operating with an EHR system in place, and nearly one-third of physicians are currently using their smart phones or personal tablets to access patients’ electronic health records. An additional 20 percent is expected to access EHR from their mobile devices within the next year.

As this trend toward EHR systems increases, the ability to share large quantities of information (for example, on the Health Information Exchange) will require flexibility, quick retrieval times, and substantial data capacity. Enter this new wave of mobile devices, and the cloud network.

Overall, the healthcare industry has been wary of storing EHR on the cloud. In fact, only five percent of healthcare providers have said they use the technology in their daily operations, according to the study.

“Generally, the healthcare industry has been slow to embrace cloud computing. This is especially true among the smaller medical practices, which comprise the vast majority of physician offices in the U.S.,” Herbert said.

But despite the slow start, Herbert remains optimistic. Healthcare providers are finding it difficult to move their data from one backup system to the next, as the amount of data they output increases. High-res medical imagery, for example, takes up much more space than it has in the past, and has forced medical companies into a costly cycle of buying and rebuying their next data storage system for additional space.

A private cloud network in place would erase these concerns for a healthcare center. Doctors can access their information, such as high-res medical images and patient data, from any mobile device despite its hardware and storage capacity, at incredible speed. And, since the mobile device is separate from the facility’s power supply, the physician’s critical information will not be lost in the case of a disaster scenario. In other words, it’s an inexpensive, highly effective Continuous Data Protection (CDP) system for healthcare providers.

Despite the current lag in adopting cloud network solutions, doctors are clearly integrating mobile technologies into their daily practices, relying more and more on digital solutions for improved patient care. The future of healthcare has arrived.

Although Slow to the Cloud, Practicing Physicians Embrace Mobile Healthcare is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

The latest summer figures have identified almost 500 million internet users in China, more than any other country in the world.  Government officials have warned that further, tighter new guidelines are on their way for October 2012.

Attempts by UK Prime Minister David Cameron to place tighter controls and even shut down social media platform Twitter during the summer riots had failed.  But Chinese officials are determined to implement the new rules with growing concern about the number of people using the internet to spread lies, rumours and mobilise potentially destabilising protest movements.  Social media sites particularly worry China’s Communist leadership with the ability of users to challenge the party’s existing internet censorship tools.  In 2009, Facebook and Twitter were banned in China after their instrumental use in anti-government protests in Iran.

Since then, China has cultivated home grown alternatives believing that they would be more pliable to the government’s agenda such as Sina Weibo. Sina Weibo has 250 million users and China has increased the punishment for internet users who spread allegedly false or harmful content.  As a result, user activity on Sina Weibo has declined.

The new rules were jointly issued by the government, police and internet management office. Regulations follow the past pattern that China has always used to regulate the internet industry.  Allow new services to establish, observe their impact and then set up a regulatory structure.

(Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/63cef782-27d0-11e1-9433-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1gifFhEOw)

Stricter Data Controls in China: Microblogging is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

These updates for the applications aim to prevent hackers from exploiting memory-corruption bugs, which were allowing them to hijack the Windows based machines. When Adobe became aware of the attacks, Adobe’s advisory stated that the security weaknesses were “being actively exploited in limited, targeted attacks in the wild.” It has been well documented that other versions of the applications for other operating systems such as Mac and Unix do possess the same memory corruption bugs. As there have been no instances of the security flaw being exploited on other operating system other than Windows, Adobe have taken the decision to release the patch update with other schedule updates in January.

The attacks have been traced back to as early as November 1^st by researchers from antivirus provider Symantec. The hackers initially conducted the attacks by circulating harmful emails which exploited the security weakness and installed the Backdoor. Sykipot. This is a Trojan horse which gives the attacker(s) a back door entry to the compromised computer.

Despite the new updates and previous implementation of other security features such as a security sandbox, it still isn’t easy sailing for Adobe security team. A new vulnerability in the applications has been discovered and is in a remote procedure call (RPC) component. Adobe has yet to comment on how serious they perceive this security flaw to be and so far, they have only revealed that they are “only aware of one instance” of it being used.

Despite the significant security improvements that Adobe have made to their applications over the last year, new vulnerabilities seem to be discovered as previous ones are fixed. There is no doubt that the Adobe security team will keep battling and carry on improving the security of their applications.

Application Security: Adobe Case Study is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

The report highlighted the lax attitude which is being adopted by councils with regards to keeping data secure.

There are 1,035 cases of UK councils experiencing data loss between 2008 and 2011. Of particular concern in the report was the exposure of data relating to children, as well as other vulnerable members of society.

One incident in Wales involved Cardiff council wrongly sending the names and addresses of 2,400 children, on the child protection registry, directly to the NHS.

Kent and Buckinghamshire were among the councils which lost the most data, with 72 cases each. Just below them, Northamptonshire and Essex had 48 and 62 cases respectively.

Wales are arguably the worst in the UK at keeping data secure however, with 8 out of 22 councils experiencing data loss in the last three years. This prompted Anne Jones at the ICO in Wales to express “serious concern.”

“It’s vital that local authorities properly live up to their legal responsibilities to keep personal data secure, particularly where it is sensitive information about children and young people” said Jones.

Data loss is becoming increasingly more concerning with more users utilising an ever-increasing array of mobile devices. There is often no remote deletion policy in place for such hardware. In addition with many organisations pushing more of their infrastructure into the Cloud, the urgency to implement tighter security measures has never been more crucial.

Concerning Lack of Data Security Among UK Councils is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.

Many companies are now swaying much more heavily towards renting data centre space. This has become especially apparent during the downturn of the economy, between 2009-10. Many sectors have not opted to commit funds to construction within this period, according to Ted Chamberlin, research director at Gartner.

This is because leasing allows much more flexibility in terms of expansion and avoids heavy initial investments. If a company experiences a heavy increase in traffic they can tap into a third party provider’s extra resources.

The main concern with building your own data centre is planning for future capacity. If a company expands quickly and owns its own premises there is the potential of facing hefty bills for maintenance, equipment or revamping.

Upgrading your own facilities on a regular basis is a huge job and can often present you with the same or larger costs than the initial build.

However not all the factors are stacked against having your own infrastructure. There is the issue of politics. The US Patriot Act for instance gives the American government the right to delve into any data stored on its shores, a huge detractor for many European businesses. Furthermore there is the UK Data protection Act which places red tape around moving data out of the EU.

Another issue is security. With your own infrastructure there is less danger of  someone gaining access to your data. Third party providers have also been  known to place pressures on customers to move out, to make room for larger customers. It is therefore essential that companies have iron-clad contracts in place, when utilising data centre space.

In conclusion there are advantages and disadvantages for both building data centres and leasing them. Many companies are now adopting a combination of both options. Often this is structured in a way which allows less important aspects of a company’s infrastructure to be outsourced, while retaining the more essential data within a purpose built infrastructure.

Approaching the Data Centre Market is a post from Backup Technology's Blog. Contact us today for further information on our Online Backup and Business Continuity services.